​February is luckily a short month as in the UK it is usually cold wet and windy with only the odd snowdrop to alleviate the drabness. Or you could see it as a chance to enjoy the long dark nights wrapped up cosily by the fire. This year I am spending it in Thailand on the beach.

While I am supposedly relaxing soaking up the sun on a beautiful beach I notice that my mind has been making judgments about myself and others. I notice that many people here have tattoos and as I watch my thoughts I can see I am judging them based on my attitude towards tattoos. Then I notice that some people who are fatter than I am are wearing bikinis and that makes me feel better but some are young and pretty and have perfect figures and then I judge myself harshly for eating too much and feel bad.

Being non judgmental of yourself and others is a central tenet of Mindfulness but is often very difficult to do. Of course there are many occasions in life where you need to exercise your judgment but so often we use habitual thinking to judge situations resorting to stereotypes rather than looking at the facts. But more often it is ourselves that we judge and most of the time we judge ourselves harshly.

We all have an inner critic that judges us badly and the more we listen to it the stronger it gets. When we start to meditate our inner critic tells us we are not doing it in the right way, we are not doing it for long enough, we are no good at it, everyone else is better at it than we are, we don’t have the time or the space. If we listen to our inner critic we will soon feel worse instead of better.

If we had a friend who criticised us this way we would soon stop seeing them and yet we listen to our inner critic all the time even though their criticism is rarely based on reality.

When we start to meditate we can acknowledge that our inner critic exists but instead of listening just observe. Watch the comments arise in your mind, stay awhile and then leave. Don’t get caught up in their story. Every time you notice that your mind has wandered don’t judge yourself just acknowledge where your mind has been and return your attention to the breath.

Remember that the object of mediation is not to empty your mind, though this may happen, but instead to observe what is going on in your mind in this moment. And so this will be different every time for everyone.

Don’t judge yourself badly for not finding time to meditate or judge mindfulness harshly for not working for you.

Just sit down when you have a couple of minutes, close your yes and watch your breath as it comes in and goes out and see what happens.